A
committee was established at American Motors to determine the next
year’s
advertising budget. Dad was the chairman. Representatives from the various
divisions of AMC plus the advertising agency were on the committee. Dad,
as George Romney’s assistant, was the chair. There was no particular
consensus reached at this meeting. Some wanted to sponsor shows like
the $64,000 Question
or others popular at the time.

Mother
had seen a list of the proposed shows. Disneyland, down on the list
of about 20 shows, excited her. Dad agreed
with her enthusiasm for this show.
So, without further meetings of the committee, Dad simply recommended that
AMC sponsor Disneyland. George Mason, AMC’s chairman, agreed with
this decision, partly because Walt Disney had produced a nature film about
fishing.
Mason was an ardent conservationist, active in Ducks Unlimited. Mason agreed
to be on Disneyland’s first show. However, Mason died a few weeks
before this show aired. George Romney, AMC’s new chairman, stepped
in. Romney’s
spot on Disneyland was his first national exposure.

Most
TV critics gave Disneyland good marks. However, the Detroit critic
panned it. After this
man’s article appeared, the sales manager for the Hudson
division - a man named Vanderzee - came into Dad’s office and chewed
him out for committing the company to a loser. Disneyland went on to
become TV’s
sensation of the year. Kids loved it. Davy Crockett starring Fess Parker
was a national craze. The McGaughey children were photographed with Parker
wearing his coon-skin cap.

William McGaughey with Roy Disney (left) and Walt Disney (right). Photo was taken on July 12, 1954.

Joe Reddy of Walt Disney Productions wrote the following about this photo:

Gathering for a three day parley with Walt Disney and ABC officials, 20 top executives representing sponsors and their agencies of Disney’s forthcoming “Disneyland” series for ABC arrives from throughout the country at the Disney Studios in Burbank (Calif). Purpose of the successful conclave was to set a format for commercial presentations on the television series, finalize participation projects in the $9,000,000 “Disneyland) Orange County (Calif) amusement center toward its opening next year, and draw up an overall promotional program covering both operations. “Disneyland” TV is sponsored by American Motors Corp. (Nash Motors - Kelvinator - Hudson Motor Car Co.), American Dairy Association and Derby Foods, Inc.

Roy O Disney, president of Walt Disney Productions, William H McGaughey, assistant to the executive vice president, Nash-Kelvinator Corp, a “Disneyland” TV co-sponsor, and Walt Disney chat during a reception for the officials at the studio.

George Romney, Joanna McGaughey, and William McGaughey (left to right) enjoying the moment when the Disneyland series began in 1955. George Romney, formerly AMC executive vice-president, was then chairman of American Motors. A pitchman for American Motors' Rambler automobile in Disneyland television commercials, Romney later became Governor of Michigan and a presidential candidate.

The
opening of Disneyland:

Walt
Disney Co. was short of money needed to open Disneyland theme park.
It invited sponsors of the TV
show to invest in this new project.
Disney engineers
had been working with experimental film techniques. They developed a technique
of using fourteen cameras to shoot 360 degrees of scenery. Disney proposed
that AMC sponsor an exhibit at Disneyland using this technique. AMC agreed.
The exhibit was called “Circarama”. It showed an AMC car traveling
through the desert to Las Vegas and other interesting places. Visitors standing
in a circular room could look out the “windows” on all sides
viewing the scenery in motion.

There
was a special one-hour show on American Broadcasting system on the
Sunday before the Disneyland Park opened. The show included testimonials
from celebrities
who were visiting the Park. Two of the celebrities were Marjorie Main,
Dad’s
cousin, and Art Linkletter, whom Dad had known since Linkletter did his
popular radio broadcast from Detroit during the 1946 Automotive Golden
Jubilee. (Dad
was publicity chairman for that event.) A roving reporter would interview
the celebrity in this fashion: Q: What do you think of this place? A: It
think
it’s great - TERRIFIC!

Mother
and Dad were invited to attend the preview of the Park’s opening
along with other specially invited guests. Disney provided the transportation.
Mother and Dad first went to Cincinnati where there were joined by four
other people including a representative of Gibson greeting cards. From
there they
flew by private plane to Los Angeles. George Romney later joined them
there.

There
was an artificial river in Disneyland down which visitors could travel
by boat. At the Disneyland preview, Mother and Dad were
invited
to join
Roy Disney, business head of the Walt Disney Co., and other including
Robert Kintner and Goldenson, head of ABS. Mother and Dad sat on both
sides of
Roy
Disney
during the boat ride. They remember Goldenson trying to elbow one or
the other aside so that he could sit next to Roy Disney.

Disney
provided free liquor for all invited guests. Dad’s driver, who
worked in the sales department at Hudson, had a bit too much to drink
and was obviously in no shape to drive on the return trip. So, Dad
drove back through
unfamiliar territory in Los Angeles and later returned the car.

George
Romney and Dad were hosts of the opening of the Circarama Exhibit
which opened at 8 p.m. on the preview day. A line of people
were standing
at the
door. Dad spotted Frank Sinatra and invited him in. A black man
with Sinatra was hanging back. Dad invited him to come in, too. This
man
turned out
to be Sammy Davis, Jr. After viewing Circarama, Sinatra remarked
to Dad that
this
was the ultimate in motion pictures.

AT&T
picked up Circarama after AMC bowed out. It later made this technology
available to
the U.G. Government for an exhibit at the 1958 World’s
Fair in Brussels.

Disneyland
was the first of the major theme parks in the United
States. Anheuser-Busch later opened one near Tampa, Florida.
Michael Jackson,
the pop singer, mentioned
the opening of Disneyland as one of history’s greatest
events.

William
McGaughey, Sr. meets Frank Sinatra at Disneyland: from an article
by William McGaughey in the Pike County Dispatch, May 20, 1998

Incredibly,
Frank Sinatra seemed more nervous than I during our first and
only meeting at the original Disneyland.

The
singer’s fall
from grace and declining popularity was in its early stage
that summer of 1956. By chance, I spotted him just outside the
American
Motors exhibit of which I was in charge. Frank was fingering the knob on
the front door, cautiously weighing the decision whether to enter.
To his apparent
relief, I invited him in. Then I called out to his black companion who was
furtively exploring other entrances to AMC’s Circarama, the 360-degree
motion picture screen. It was, of course, Frank’s bosom pal, Sammy
Davis, Jr.

I
promptly invited the two guests to meet George Romney, president,
chairman
and CEO of American Motors, who was waiting to see the projections on a
screen that was wrapped around the entire room and was about
to be filled by Nash
and Hudson cars weaving in and out of the streets of Las Vegas.

An
electrician told us that the showing on the screen was about
to begin. Nineteen
separate cameras were coordinated so that the eye first saw
the new Detroit
models moving forward, then they were shown in side views, and finally
the cameras caught sight of rear bumpers as the pictures gave way to
the scenic
hotels and skyscrapers of Vegas, which earlier had become the stage for
the skinny boy from Hoboken.

When
the 10-minute Circarama presentation was completed, Sinatra gave
his verdict. He turned to Mr. Davis
and said, ‘This is the wave
of the future. The motion picture single screen is obsolete and future
movies will use this
exciting new technology.’

He
was wrong, of course. Except for World Fairs, such as the upcoming
one in Brussels, and especially arranged
showings to sizable audiences,
Circarama
was too expensive to operate.

Nevertheless,
his words were encouraging and I felt somewhat redeemed that
my Big Boss Romney had accepted
my recommendation to pay the heavy
rental
cost for Disneyland exhibitions.

From
a letter by William McGaughey to his son on May 11, 1996

In
late June 1954, I was at a series of meetings at the Disney studios,
then in Burbank, California, to confer about the forthcoming Disney
TV production which American Motors had agreed to sponsor on the ABC
network.

During
a coffee break, I asked Walt Disney if I could have an autographed
copy of one of his cartoon characters for my children.
He asked me to write down
names and ages. He then went into his office, returning with four cartoons,
neatly framed, and, I believe, all autographed. The cartoons were of Mickey,
Dumbo, Snow White, and, while my memory falters, I believe the other might
have been of Dopey, one of the dwarfs in Snow White, for brother David.

Dad

Andy
and Bill McGaughey meet NBC president, Robert Kintner, and later other New York
media figures

Robert
Kintner was the ABC executive who was promoting the Disneyland television
show when American Motors decided to sponsor it. Andrew and William
McGaughey, Jr. both worked in New York City in the summer of 1960.
By that time, Robert Kintner had moved to NBC and become its president.

William
McGaughey Sr. gave his sons a list of persons in New York whom they
might wish to contact. Andrew McGaughey contacted Kintner. The two brothers
were invited to meet the NBC president in his office in Rockefeller Center.
William McGaughey, jr. naively asked Kintner if television shows ever tried
to cast certain types of people as heroes or villains. Kintner replied in
the negative. At the end of their interview, Kintner offered the two
brothers a
pair of tickets to the Jack Paar show, later called the "Tonight Show".
Having never seen it, they unwisely declined the offer.

Several
years later, their sister, Margaret, was a classmate of Randy Paar,
Jack’s daughter, at the Master School in Dobbs
Ferry, New York. Jack Paar was seen videotaping his daughter’s
high-school graduation ceremonies. In the summer of 1964,
Randy Paar
visited Margaret at the McGaughey’s family
home in Milford and took a canoe trip five miles down the Delaware river
with Margaret, Bill McGaughey, Jr. and his college roommate, Bill
Rieder.

Another
media figure, Don Hewitt, who produced CBS's "60 Minutes", lived
on the same floor (the 21st) as the McGaugheys on East 86th Street in New
York.
William McGaughey, Sr. often encountered Hewitt near the elevator as he
took the family's collie dog, Brigadoon, for a daily walk in the park near
Gracie mansion or on other occasions.